Hope for the best, plan for the worst: Reducing risks associated with repository cessation

Abstract

Digital preservation entails the need to maintain the accessibility and usability of digital assets for the long term—potentially beyond the lifetime of the repository in which they were initially published. The reasons for repository cessation are manifold, including financial, technical, and organisational reasons. Sometimes, cessation is a planned event, for example, at the end of a funded project, or when the preserved data have fulfilled their purpose. Often though, funding cuts or similar causes for repository shutdown come as a surprise, and repositories may not have sufficient time and resources to find an organisation capable and willing to accept (parts of) the data collection and prepare the actual handover. Therefore, repositories need to prepare for such scenarios in advance as best as possible. Yet, little guidance on this matter exists. Therefore, a group of repositories from the German Network of Educational Research Data (VerbundFDB) considered which information is needed to start the process of succession planning. The result of this work is a template to be completed by both repositories preparing for cessation and potential target repositories considering accepting data. The template allows repositories to collate information about the data collection, organisational, technical, and legal aspects relevant to a potential data custody transfer. This can help spotting potential gaps in the workflows and documentation, at the same time as facilitating communication with target repositories.